The imagery is disturbing but effective to accurately immerse one in this environment and feel what's really at stake in this fight.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 5, 2022

Mayor is one of those brilliantly layered observational films that surge with vivid actualities - not necessarily a difficult task given that your subject is the lovable, impassioned mayor of a Palestinian city in the West Bank.

| Dec 2, 2021

One can't help but wish that Osit would occasionally dig a bit deeper, though that's clearly not the intention here.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Apr 5, 2021

A riveting and human portrait of the very likable Musa Hadid... Briskly paced and expertly edited, Mayor is a humbling reminder that not all politicians are cynical opportunists.

| Mar 12, 2021

The film is filled with a surprising amount of good humor.

| Feb 8, 2021

Far from a message movie, David Osit's sensitive documentary is a captivating, enlightening, and ultimately terrifying look at how to survive day by day when the fight for liberation can seem everlasting.

| Original Score: A- | Feb 4, 2021

A thought-provoking, considered and respectfully made film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 11, 2021

Deft editing and unexpectedly affecting music choices make for an engaging portrait of the kind of impassioned and dedicated politician who seems in short supply right now.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 10, 2021

Smart, yet somewhat one-sided and process-orientated portrait of a man and his municipality.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 4, 2021

In its gently ironic way, the film depicts an urban centre keen to be treated, and run, as a genuine place to live, a town like any other.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 4, 2021

[An adjective] that describes [the protagonist] is steady, and the point director David Osit makes is that consistent, reliable leadership is underrated.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 1, 2021

The film lets you appreciate Hadid's delicate and complex situation.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 30, 2020

The documentary, to me, seemed to be balanced and observational.

| Dec 30, 2020

...pulls back the curtain on the day-to-day of a man just doing his best to serve his community in a city perhaps unlike any other.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 28, 2020

An illuminating alternative view into a divided political hot zone where most people seek a foothold of normalcy - and an intriguing juxtaposition and follow-on view to Frederick Wiseman's City Hall...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 12, 2020

While understated and deeply personal, Mayor cannot avoid the current conflagration in the region.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 12, 2020

As Osit shows Hadid working to make Ramallah a place its people can take pride in, the mayor becomes an extraordinary documentary subject and we want to thank Osit for introducing us to Hadid and taking us inside his city.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 9, 2020

Essential viewing about the lines between small and grand acts of resistance.

| Dec 8, 2020

Osit doesn't push his subject, instead the director contrasts sometimes dryly funny day-to-day bureaucratic machinations with extraordinary events to give viewers a weighty sense of the existential.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 8, 2020

A nice little microcosmic example of something that is happening in a larger conflict, but it does not necessarily contribute toward our understanding of the broader conflict.

| Dec 8, 2020